Several celebrities from the art world visited the Lo Sheng Sanatorium yesterday and expressed support for its preservation based on its cultural value.
Among the figures were Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) and Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢). Lin is the founder of the Cloud Gate dance troupe and Hou is a renowned film director who has won several international film awards.
Lo Sheng is a leprosarium built in 1930 where thousands of lepers were once quarantined for life. A plan to tear down most of the buildings on the 17-hectare site to make room for a Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) depot has met with strong opposition.
PHOTO: CHEN WEN-CHUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"People often believe the Lo Sheng case is a debate between a public construction project and a cultural heritage site ... That is wrong," said Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩), former director of the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs.
"It's not a win-lose game. Culture and public construction projects can actually coexist," Liao added.
Last year, a construction consultant company based in Britain proposed a design by which 90 percent of the leprosarium would be preserved, with the MRT depot being completed only a few months later than planned.
"We Taiwanese always try to arrange things. Why can't we arrange this?" Hou asked.
Hou added that Lo Sheng Sanitorium was a key relic in Taiwan's history.
"It [Lo Sheng] actually records our ignorance and the violence of the state in the past," Hou said.
Lin agreed, and warned that Taiwan would become a nation without memory if public works didn't respect history.
"We began to learn Taiwan's history in the 1980s. Yet, with cries for development, many of our historical markers have been torn down," Lin said.
"When I walked into this place, what I felt could never be replaced by history classes or textbooks," he added.
Since Lo Sheng's future remains uncertain, Hou said he wanted to make a documentary to record the struggle for the leprosarium's preservation.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS